Should You Choose to Love Anyone Any Time Soon
by rubblerousing
Summary: After Kurt ends their possibly premature engagement, Blaine wallows in misery at Sam's apartment for so long that he ends up living there. And then they start a band together. And by the time they end up at a high school reunion party, everyone has formed an opinion about their relationship, except Sam and Blaine themselves.
1. Chapter 1

"Hey, Handsome."

"Hi, Beautiful."

"Oh my God, you actually _are_ handsome." Tina squinted, closer to the screen. "The last time we Skyped I thought I accidentally called a caveman or a serial killer. I haven't seen you this clean cut since senior year."

Blaine shrugged. "Just playing the part."

"And how is life on the road? Is the tour bus everything you dreamed and more?"

"Life on the road _was_ partially fun, partially lonely and boring, fairly disgusting as far as… diet, and lack of showers. Anyway, now it's over."

"Oh yeah, last night was your last show. I kind of knew that. Are you at the airport?"

Blaine turned the screen around to show her Terminal 3 of LAX.

"Very fancy. Was there an actual reason you guys didn't do a show in New York?"

"We didn't do a show in New York so that no one in New York could come to our show," Blaine explained.

"Riiiiight," she pointed at him. "People you know, you mean."

"Right. I only want people I don't know seeing me play music. And seeing me, in general."

"I was stalking the Blam Band—"

"Not our name..."

"— on Twitter. You guys apparently actually have fans. Like, more than one. And as far as I could tell, none of them were even your parents, because they looked like they were in middle school."

"That's Sam's fault. He still looks like a middle school student. And I don't have fans."

"I saw a girl _posing in a picture_ with you on Twitter. And she was all 'Oh my God! It's me with _Blaine Anderson_.'"

"They like me because I'm in Sam's band."

"They had your autograph…"

"They were probably trying to get Sam's and I got in the way."

"Did they wait by your bus after the shows? Oh my God. I need to see this for myself next time. I'm selling your merch the next time you go on tour. I'm totally your merch girl. Do you have merch?"

"No," Blaine lied.

She sighed. "You're such a glamourous rock star now. Anyway, this Skype date has a purpose."

"I'm listening. Apparently there's a flight-conflicting thunderstorm in New York, so I'm going nowhere for the foreseeable future."

"Actually, it is an epic thunderstorm," she said, and brought her phone to the window, to show him the black sky over Manhattan. "It was hailing a minute ago."

"I'm jealous," Blaine said. He had always loved a good storm.

"Okay, so listen," Tina said, her face appearing again. "Rachel said—"

"I'm going to hang up on you," Blaine interrupted.

"Just listen! Rachel said it's my turn this year to organize the reunion party thing. Except she said it has to happen in the next two weeks. But other than the general date, I have to organize it."

Blaine just stared at her, blinking once.

Tina pressed her lips together and popped them apart, awkward in the silence. "When's your year?"

"I wasn't aware we had designated years, Tina."

Sam fell into the airport waiting lounge seat next to him then, a different kind of fast food salad in each hand. He leaned into Blaine's shoulder to look at his screen. "Hi, Tina."

"Hi Sam! Blaine said I could be your merch girl!"

Blaine shook his head. "No I didn't," he whispered.

Sam smiled at him, and leaned out of their conversation.

"She's trying to get us to go to the party."

"The party?" Sam asked.

"_The party_."

Realization crossed Sam's face, and his smile turned to a frown. "No!"

"Right." Blaine looked back to Tina. "We're not going."

"Wrong! How long has it been since we graduated? Three years! Three parties! And you only went to one of them. _The first one_! That is altogether unacceptable. You have a terrible track record."

"I've been to all of them, and I'm not going to this one," Sam said.

"Yes, you are. You both are. I'm one thousand percent determined to get _everyone_ to come."

"Why don't we just invite the people who actually graduated with us?" Blaine tried.

Sam shook his head. "That doesn't help me. I still wouldn't go."

"No, everyone has to come. I can't not invite Rachel. It's her party. I mean, it's my party. But it's her party."

Sam handed Blaine one shredded carrot. Blaine ate it, mostly because it was the only thing he would eat all day, and it was getting dark out.

"Who's gonna be there?" Sam asked, still out of frame for Tina.

"Rachel and her fiancee," Tina began.

"No," Blaine said.

"Mercedes and her boyfriend…"

"No," Sam said.

"Mike Chang, plus one," she went on, with an unenthusiastic tone. "Quinn—"

"No," Sam said.

"Puck and Jake, Ryder, Marley, Kitty, Unique, Artie, plus all their ones…"

"I don't think your apartment can hold that many people, Tina," Blaine said. "I've been there."

"Santana…"

"No," Sam said.

"Brittany…"

"No," Sam said.

"Finn?"

They didn't say anything.

"And Kurt and Adam," she said finally, in one syllable, fast, like ripping off a bandaid. She smiled at Blaine.

Blaine just stared at her again.

After a moment her smile faded. "I feel like I'm forgetting about 15 people. Who am I forgetting?"

He shrugged. "Joe and Sugar?"

She looked pale. "Look, obviously I'm going to have a mental breakdown trying to organize this thing, I'll need you there."

"Did all of these people actually confirm they're coming?" Blaine asked.

"Yes… I told you last. I was trying to think of a way to avoid it, because I knew how much you'd hate it. But there's no way you can avoid it. And neither can I. It's like a terrible, evil monster, that has to rear its ugly head once a year. We all have to sit in a room together, and simmer, and boil, and fester, and suffer, and hate every second of it, and none of us can cop out. If I have to do it, you have to do it."

"Tina," Sam said, leaning in front of Blaine again. "There's a difference between what I had with Brittany, and what you had with_ Mike Chang_."

She frowned.

Blaine twisted his ring.

"If I have to see her, I'll kill myself," Sam said.

"I feel similarly," Blaine nodded. "So we're not coming."

"Fuck you both," Tina said. "You're coming. It's on Saturday. I lied."

She hung up. Then she sent an email to Blaine that said, "Actually I love you."

—

Blaine walked into Sam Evans' first solo show, at a seedy bar at two in the morning, forty five minutes late. He had fourteen texts on his phone from Sam, all of which said, "You're late!" Or, "YOU'RE LATE." The most recent said, "youre late," which meant he was really mad.

Sam was already nearing the end of his set. At that point he hadn't yet cultivated the pop driven thing that Blaine would eventually encourage him to do, the thing that appealed to all the little girls and would actually make them enough money to pay the rent. Instead he was doing the heartbroken guy with a guitar thing. It was mostly quiet, with occasional bursts of loud, soul crushing vocals. It was affecting no one in the bar, except that when he started wailing they would up the volume of their private conversations to account for it.

The first person Blaine saw that he recognized, except for Sam of course, was Rachel's fiancee. It meant Rachel must certainly be somewhere nearby. Which meant Blaine had to hide, and fast. He never planned to defy security guards and rush backstage without permission, but that's what he ended up doing. It turned out the security guards had no qualm about a perfect stranger entering the magical off-limits zone that is backstage at all. So he watched the rest of the show from side stage, looking mostly at Sam's back, and his profile, and hoping he wasn't noticeable from the audience, next to the curtain that would close off the stage at the end of the night.

When Sam came off stage and saw him, he froze. He said, "Dude, you look like you got dumped." And then, "Dude, did you actually get dumped?" Blaine couldn't speak, so they just looked at each other for a while. Eventually Sam put his guitar down, inferring the answer, and hugged him. It was just the gesture Blaine needed to completely fall apart. He clung to Sam and sobbed into his shirt.

"Sammy!" they heard Artie yell from beyond. Sam pulled away from Blaine fast, and ran to meet Artie in an adjoining room.

"Everyone's here except Blaine and Kurt," he heard Artie say. "They're probably busy singing to each other on a rooftop. Should I have them hobbled or just banished?"

"Blaine's here, it's just Kurt that didn't come. And it's okay."

"Where's Blaine? I didn't see him."

"He's like…" Long pause. "Indisposed right now."

Another long pause. Then Artie said, "Wow."

"They had a fight," Sam whispered, but Blaine could still hear him.

"Was it bad?" Artie asked, voice low.

Sam must have answered with a nod, because Blaine couldn't hear an answer.

Without anyone noticing, Sam took him to an all night diner that night, forgoing his own after party. He tried to feed Blaine pancakes and eggs, and Blaine told him everything. Everything. But the sum of the whole story was one line: He said he fell out of love with me. It was the thing Blaine was sure would haunt him for the rest of his life. Every time he thought about it, and he would think about it all the time, it would hurt just as much as the first time he heard it come from Kurt's mouth. He was sure.

"What does that mean? How does that even make sense?" Sam asked, which was exactly what Blaine couldn't answer.

"He brought up the… the… what I did in high school," Blaine finally put it, "Which we haven't talked about in a million years because we're supposed to be over it. He said I ruined everything, all the way back then. He said every day since then he's been trying to convince himself that he's forgiven me but that he can't pretend anymore, and he can't force himself to. He said he's been waiting this whole time to feel for me the same way he used to feel when we were 16, and he knows now that it's never going to come back. And he said he doesn't want to wait, or try, anymore."

"But," Sam said, "you guys weren't even sixteen at the same time."

Blaine banged his head against the table, and didn't care if his hair got in the syrup.

Sam let him stay at his apartment until he could find a new place of his own. Sam gave him a hooded sweatshirt and a pair of sweatpants to sleep in. Blaine zipped the hood all the way up to his chin and sat curled up on the couch, hugging his knees, all night, awake. He waited for Kurt to call. He waited for enough time to pass for the pain to stop. He twisted and twisted his engagement ring in the front pocket of the sweatshirt, wondering when it wold stop feeling so heavy and obvious.

The first morning after, Sam came to check on him. Blaine hadn't slept, but Sam had bedhead. "You okay?" he asked.

Blaine shrugged. "He didn't call. Did he call you?"

"No," Sam said.

Blaine nodded, and quit talking after that, for a while.

After an indeterminate number of days, Sam convinced him to to speak, just a little, sometimes. Then he ate again. Then he took a shower, but he went right back to the sweatshirt. It always felt soft and good, like the hug Sam gave him backstage the night that it happened.

After two whole weeks passed and Blaine still hadn't left the apartment, he finally listened to the message from his boss at the coffee shop. "I'm fired," he croaked out to Sam. They were in the living room, on opposite sides of the sofa. Sam was drinking a beer, and Blaine was holding one. He still hadn't relearned to properly consume things yet.

"There are a million coffee places," Sam said. Then he frowned and added, "But you shouldn't be doing that. You should be singing. You should go on auditions like the rest of 'em. Or do an open mic."

Blaine glared at him and hoped the black half moons under his eyes were showing enough to underscore the look. "No."

Sam sighed. "Then play with me, for a while."

"I only play piano," Blaine said, not sure why he was considering the idea enough even to decline it. "You don't have any piano in your songs."

"But I could… if you'd write new songs for me… songs with piano in them…"

Blaine looked at him again, surprised. And then, just like that, he smiled. The world had turned. "Shut up."


	2. Chapter 2

The flight from LAX got into JFK at one in the morning, and by the time Sam and Blaine stumbled out of the airport taxi with their suitcases they were ready to collapse.

Sam was brushing his teeth and Blaine was in the kitchen, contemplating drinking orange juice that was purchased pre-tour and twisting his ring. Suddenly his heart stopped. "Saturday," he remembered. "When's Saturday? Is that tomorrow?"

"In three days," Sam called from the bathroom.

"Oh."

Blaine pulled at the sofa cushions until it transformed into a full size bed, the same creaking thing he'd slept on for the past year. After he settled back on it, Sam's head poked through the doorway, frowning.

"Tina didn't ask us if we were bringing anyone."

Blaine sighed. Sam disappeared back into the hallway. Blaine waited a while, to see if he'd come back, but he didn't. He went into his room, the one bedroom of their one bedroom apartment, and shut the door.

Blaine sighed again, and pulled the blankets up over his head. He waited a few more minutes, not moving, just blinking, but nothing happened.

So he turned out the light.

—

They were celebrating signing their first record contract when it happened. Earlier in the day they'd gone to the headquarters of a certain top-three label to seal the deal, to ensure at least a freshman release and a small national tour. It was the label of most acts on the radio. It was also label to a hundred bands that went nowhere and whom no one had ever heard of, but Sam and Blaine weren't going to think about that, just then.

After signing a million papers in the Manhattan office, with lawyers and handshakes and everything, they went back to Brooklyn, to the liquor store closest to Sam's apartment (it was still just Sam's apartment, then). Sam convinced Blaine to buy a lot of Tennessee whiskey, besides just the wine and lame sweet vodkas he usually chose.

"Are we really going to get drunk all by ourselves?" he asked Sam while they stood in line with armfuls of bottles. "Don't we have any friends anymore?"

"Yeah, but all of our friends fucking suck," Sam said.

And, well, Blaine couldn't argue with that.

So they went home and drank most of it, taking turns choosing accompanying two-person party music. It alternated through electropop girl groups, sad singer/songwriters, shoegaze, and back again, somehow fitting (or dictating) the mood perfectly.

"I feel like this is gonna end with us making out," Blaine had said, while Sam poured him the first shot of whiskey.

"Me too," Sam said, stone faced, not missing a beat. He was probably joking. "We're at least going to end up in each other's arms, crying."

"Fantastic," Blaine said. "I can't wait." They tapped shot glasses and bid one another cheers.

Blaine was the first to go. He decided it made more logical sense to sit on the sofa upside down, so he had his feet in the air and his head on the ground while the first drunken subject played out: high school.

"Okay. Remember when we did that duet of 'Heroes' in glee club?" Sam asked, staring straight ahead at the TV, which was off.

"Yes," Blaine said, upside down.

"That was amazing. We're musical soul mates. We're actual geniuses. We should do that song again, but we should, like…" An unnecessarily long pause. "Record it."

"We could. Or we could do it on tour. Would we get sued? How does copyright work? I can't believe we agreed to go on a tour. Where are we gonna play? Who would ever… buy a ticket… to see us play music?"

Sam thought about it. "Your mom," he said finally, and made himself laugh.

"Who are these weird people we don't even know, who buy tickets to things?" Blaine asked the universe. Then, "Remember when we did 'Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go?'"

Sam frowned and shook his head. "No."

Part two: Blaine sat upright again, only because he couldn't drink upside down, and Sam was on his back, with his feet in Blaine's lap.

"What if I was, like, a rapper?" Sam asked. "I mean, in the future."

"Uh," Blaine said.

"I mean, who says I can't make a rap album some day? I want to be prolific. I could use a fake name. A pseudonym. Do you know who was a great rapper?"

"Tupac?"

"Mr. Schuester."

They laughed until Blaine fell off the couch.

Part three: They were both upright again (for the sake of drinking,) and now the sun had set. Sam's head fell onto Blaine's shoulder, but Blaine didn't really notice. They both stared at the black TV screen.

"What are you doing in the future?"

"What?"

"If I'm gonna be a rapper," Sam said. "You have to do something."

"Can't I come with you?" Blaine asked, feeling abandoned all of a sudden. "I'll produce the record. I'll write your fat beats."

"I hope you said that with a 'ph' in your mind."

"Oh my God."

"Are we gonna keep being roommates for a while?"

"I don't know," Blaine tried to shrug, but Sam's head was still on his shoulder, so he stopped. He wondered if Sam was trying to kick him out. "Tina has said a hundred times I can stay with her, but…"

"But?"

"But… she lives in a studio apartment, and…"

"And?"

"And there are… there is only one person I want to know exactly how pathetic I am right now."

"Well, she's not gonna post it on Facebook, or anything."

"She'd have me committed."

"You don't need to be committed, Blaine." Sam sat up to look him in the eyes. "And you should stay here, for as long as you want."

He tried to say thanks without saying it.

Another unnecessary pause, and then Sam blinked and turned back to the coffee table and the black TV screen. He poured himself another shot and emptied it and then lay down across the sofa again, resting his head in Blaine's lap.

"This isn't any fun, is it?" Blaine asked. "Now we're just tired and the room is spinning, but nothing fun is happening. We need to do what normal people do at parties. What do normal people do at parties? We need dancing girls in bikinis or something."

"What about dancing guys in bikinis? What good is a dancing girl in a bikini to you?" Sam mumbled into Blaine's knee.

Blaine made some kind of disgusted noise and put his hands to his face. "I can't think about sexy guys. Or sex. Or guys. Or romance, or relationships, or crushes, or … people in general, or speaking to them… or looking at them… or existing among them."

"This is not good PR for our band."

"You can have your girls in bikinis. I'll just sit here. Doing nothing. Not feeling. Yes, good plan."

"No hooking up with strippers, then?"

"That's another reason I can't go live with Tina. She's turning into an annoying mother. She keeps saying I need to 'get back out there,' and she wants to set me up with a lawyer or a dentist or something."

"I could set you up with a stripper."

"Do I _look_ like I'm capable of impressing _anyone_ right now? Let alone a wildly successful, career driven person? I was just fired from my part time coffee shop job because I've recently developed agoraphobia. I live on a sofa I don't even own, let alone the apartment it's in. Things are not looking so great for me right now."

"You just signed a record deal. We're making a record. And going on tour. We might have, like, at least 35 fans on the internet. I think that's super impressive."

Blaine didn't say anything.

Sam sat up. "Plus… if any new guy really got to know you, he'd see that you're, like, the best dude ever. And you shouldn't listen to TIna. You shouldn't 'get back out there,' if you aren't ready to. Maybe you never will be. You don't have to be with someone, like, ever, you know. Just live for yourself. For a while, at least."

Blaine scrunched up his eyebrows. "This is why I mooch off of you and never leave you alone. You say all the things I want to hear."

Sam looked away. "Maybe I'm just enabling you. Maybe I shouldn't tell you stuff like that." A pause. He looked back at Blaine. "But it's just what I believe."

"That's why you're my one true love, Sam Evans," Blaine said, mostly as a joke, mostly into his glass before taking a drink from it.

Sam stared at him for a moment, and then stood up quickly. "Uh," he said. "I'm hungry." He went into the kitchen. "Are you hungry?" he yelled from there.

Blaine wiped his lips with his hand and thought about it. "Yes."

"Really?"

"… Yes?" Wait, was that some kind of euphemistic question that was hiding a real question?

Anyway, the answer was probably yes.

Round four: Sam came back with a bag of chips. He dropped them on the coffee table, completely out of reach, and then fell into Blaine's lap and kissed him.

Wasn't there a promise he made to himself once? It was completely irrelevant at the time, early in his time at Dalton, but it was made out of some kind of self-righteousness in the everlasting, trivial boredom of adolescence, when he had absolutely nothing better to do than promise himself things. Never make out with your straight friends. You are not a tool of someone else's experimentation. You're important! You have dignity!

But there was some other little nagging thing, something that had developed equilaterally with the development of his friendship with Sam, that wouldn't stop whispering in his ear that maybe they sort of belonged together. Not in a shiny, sparkly, soul mate kind of way, but in a far more normal, attainable sort of way. They wouldn't have to live up to an impossible dream. They wouldn't have to be perfect at all. They wouldn't even have to have a typical relationship. They could have a secret thing — a normal, non-judgemental, friends with benefits for their entire lives (or as long as it felt right) kind of thing. It wasn't the beautiful romance he thought he had always wanted, but it seemed pretty good just then, all things considered.

Especially because he hadn't made out with anyone or been particularly handsy with anyone for so abysmally long, even though he told himself every second of every day that that was the opposite of what he wanted, it felt nice to have it again, when the opportunity literally fell into his lap. Sam was warm and scruffy and tasted familiar, like being 17 again, and like that Tennessee whiskey. He refused to think about how many times he'd fantasized about this happening, or about the couple of times he fantasized about this happening post-Kurt, when he would somehow find the time mid-kiss to propose a modest boyfriendship. But no. First of all, obviously Sam would say no. But more importantly, Blaine needed to learn (preferably not the hard way) that not everything had to be fairy tale, twinkly lighted, movie scripted, true love bullshit. Even if Sam somehow impossibly managed to feel to him exactly the same way Kurt had once, Blaine wouldn't want it all over again. It hurt too much to lose it in the end, and he was sure it wasn't worth all the happiness in the first place to fall as low as he fell after it was over.

Plus, you can't ask someone to be in a relationship with you when you still refuse to take off your engagement ring from a different one.

But you can make out with someone in that position. When neither of you care. When it really isn't about love, or very much about lust (because they definitely were not going to sleep together, Blaine decided), or anything really, except being close and drunk and caring and drunk and best friends with little crushes and drunk and sort of happy. And a little bored.

Physically, Blaine politely declined all of Sam's offers to take things a little farther, because Blaine felt things had probably already gone too far. He was 90% sure Sam was going to seriously regret kissing him in the morning, and the logical, sober part of his brain said if they had sex Sam would probably kick him out of the apartment when he realized and they might never see each other again. Maybe next time, he told Sam telepathically. Probably next time. You don't really have to twist my arm. So Sam gave up, and kissed down Blaine's neck, moving slower and slower until he simply fell asleep, his face nuzzled in Blaine's throat, still all curled up in his lap.

They stayed there until the sun rose again.

Sam woke up first, and said very quietly, "Oh my God, Blaine. It was a self fulfilling prophecy. We're in each other's arms and everything."

Blaine rubbed his eyes. "But we didn't cry."

Sam rolled off him to go take a shower. In the hopes he wasn't having a mental breakdown in there, Blaine cooked him breakfast. He tried to make and serve it in a way that didn't say, "Now we're in love and we're going to have babies," but in a way that said, "Don't freak out, everything's still exactly the same as before."

Sam smiled as soon as he saw it, so it seemed he wasn't fazed. And Blaine smiled back at him, before he could stop himself to remind himself how much he hated life, and smiling. And so things were exactly the same as before, only a little better.


	3. Chapter 3

"One, two, three, drink. WAIT!"

Blaine froze, the shot glass to his lips. "What?"

Sam linked his arm around Blaine's, in the weird way married people drink champaign at the reception. "We should do this like we're getting married. We're not getting married, but I mean, it's like, the international symbol of solidarity. We're bros. We can't forget each other tonight. Or give up on each other. Or flake out, or anything."

Blaine frowned at him. "Okay. What if we just don't go?"

Sam rolled his eyes. "Just drink it."

They drank. Blaine made a face. "Can we ever stop with the Tennessee whiskey thing?"

Sam frowned back at him. "Why are you wearing that hat?"

Blaine lifted a hand and touched it. It was a bowler sort of thing he found at a thrift shop. "It's fashionable."

Sam took it and put it on his own head. "It looks better on me, I'm wearing it. Let's go."

Now it was Blaine's turn to yell, "Wait!"

Sam stopped and turned back to him.

"What should I do with the ring?" His heart started beating 300 times faster just thinking of Kurt finding out he still wore it.

A look that said 'maybe you should stop fucking wearing it' passed over Sam's face, but when it was gone he just said, "I don't know."

Blaine just stared at him, on the verge of fainting.

"Leave… it…" Sam stopped before 'here' was out of his mouth, according to the dangerous look on Blaine's face. "You wore it on that chain around your neck during the tour? Do that again? Under your shirt?"

"But what if he grabs at it and wants to know what it is? Not that I think he's going to grab at me. Or care about my accessories. But it _could happen_."

Sam pointed at him wisely. "Pocket."

Blaine looked down at his shirt. There were two little breast pockets on the front. He put the ring in the left one, and buttoned it up tight.

The walk from the subway to Tina's apartment was long and arduous. They didn't really speak to each other, mostly because Blaine thought if he opened his mouth to speak he'd end up just running frantically in any other direction. And they were both busy imagining all possible worst scenarios, trying to prepare themselves.

They were waiting for a light to turn green so they could cross the street. When it did, Blaine walked, but Sam stayed put. Blaine stopped and turned, breathing a sigh of relief. If Sam wasn't going, he definitely wasn't going to go. It was over.

"No, we're going," Sam said without Blaine saying a word, and he walked again. "I was just thinking. Going to see everyone from high school is making me think about high school."

"What about it?" Blaine asked, not really wanting to know the answer. He was trying hard not to think about high school, and weighing the odds that literally no one at the party would even bring it up.

"About The Terrible Thing, the fake shooting that turned out to be Coach Sylvester accidentally dropping a gun on her foot, or whatever."

Blaine turned his head to roll his eyes at an empty storefront instead of Sam. "Oh yeah?"

"Well, and like about how much I wanted to find Brittany then. But look at us now. I haven't seen her in more than a year and… I could really care less what she's doing with her life now. I mean, I cared about her so much back then. I loved her. And I thought I had a future with her, and that someone would take that away from me, if they got to her before I did. But now there's nothing. Like, no feelings between us at all. And here I am, in the future, without her. Doing fine. I should have protected you instead."

Blaine made some kind of breath related noise he didn't care to decipher. "Me?"

"Well you're like the most important person to me out of all of them, now. I thought, you're a strong dude. You've gone through a lot of shit, and you can take care of yourself. You can box. You'd be fine, I thought. But… if you weren't… where would I be now?"

Blaine was speechless.

"Not to sound super selfish… I mean, obviously it'd be worse for you if you didn't make it. But I… kind of need you, now."

Blaine was frowning harder than he should have been. He turned fast to give a stern look to Sam. "Are you giving me advice about Kurt?"

"Um," Sam said.

"You're saying time heals everything, and after a few years I'll be happier I have good, true friends, instead of anyone I might have thought I might have loved once, because that's fleeting, and no one has time for people who'll just abandon slash dump you in the end, like Brittany and Kurt, right?"

Sam blinked. "Right."

Blaine nodded. "Thank you for the advice."

"… You're welcome."

They walked on in silence.

The music was pounding, shaking the floor when they stepped off the elevator. Blaine thought about trying to figure out how to fall down the shaft while Sam knocked. Why would he knock? Who was going to hear a knock?

But the door swung open immediately, and Tina screeched drunkenly above all other noise, "_IT'S BLAM!_"

Dozens of people, faces unrecognizable to Blaine, turned to stare at them. Then they all broke into big smiles, and lifted their drinks, and cheered like he and Sam had just gone on stage.

"Oh my God," Blaine said under his breath, feeling like he was going to cry.

"We shouldn't have come," Sam replied. It was the last thing he said to him before hands grabbed at them both and pulled them in opposite directions, ripping them apart for the first time in a very long time.

Tina of course had Blaine, and dragged him to the kitchen. "What do you want to drink?" she asked, beginning to mix about four different drinks in four different glasses at once.

Blaine watched her as she moved. "When did you learn to… bar tend?"

She thrust a glass into his hand. "Since Rachel told me I was responsible for this party? Since more than one of my ex boyfriends have walked through the door? Take your pick."

Blaine drank to that.

"How are you? I know we just talked a couple weeks ago, but who knows what you could have gotten up to since then. How's the post tour life?"

"Boring. Fine."

"Are you—" Tina tried to ask, but an arm slung itself over his shoulders from out of nowhere, and suddenly he was being surrounded by different people. His anxiety level rose several degrees.

"How was the International Blam Tour?" Puck asked, half hugging him, or perhaps leaning on him for physical support. Since when were he and Puck close enough to do this? He remembered Puck giving him a shot glass once. That was about the extent of their relationship.

Blaine shook his head. "Not international, and our band's name still isn't Blam."

"Why didn't you do a New York show, though?" Santana asked him. "Seriously. We were all gonna go, I mean, to heckle you, of course. And then the dates came out, and nothing. No New York whatsoever."

Blaine didn't know how to answer that, so he said nothing. He noticed Jake and Marley hanging in the periphery, smiling at him, so he waved at them.

"I downloaded your CD," Marley spoke up, but moved her eyebrows in a way that made it look like she was apologizing for it. "It was really good. I would have gone to your show, and I definitely wouldn't have heckled you."

"Thank you," Blaine said. "Do either of you live out here now, or…?" He didn't remember Jake or Marley, or Puck, for that matter, being part of the New York group.

"No," Marley shook her head. "We just came for the party."

Blaine stared at her. Finally he said, "Wow."

Tina appeared again, and leaned into his ear. "This party is a really big deal," she said, just loud enough for him to hear. "I'm going insane."

"Anyway, what I really want to know from you is where to find Sam," Santana said.

"Somewhere in here, I think," was Blaine's answer.

"I need to go harass him," she said, and walked away.

"I don't know if… I wouldn't… okay," he gave up. She was gone. Puck followed her, and Jake and Marley were talking amongst themselves. He had about fifteen seconds of precious alone time before Rachel slid in front of him and gave him a devious smile, her nameless fiancee on her arm.

"Hey, Buddy," her fiancee said, and held his hand out for Blaine to shake.

Blaine stared at it, bewildered for a moment, and then shook it rather weakly.

"It's good to see you again," he said, and then walked away. Blaine had never said anything to him.

Blaine gave Rachel a look. She was still smiling at him, up to something, her hand on her hip. He turned to drain the drink Tina had mixed for him and then tried to recreate it himself from the bottles she'd left on the counter.

"Do you have a problem with him?" Rachel asked.

"No, especially not now that he and I are buddies," Blaine answered. He looked at her sideways, unable to hold his tongue. "How's that four year engagement coming along?"

"I don't know, how's your completely failed engagement coming along?" she replied.

Blaine sighed. "What do you want?"

"I just want to know… what's up."

"In what regard?"

"In every regard."

"Nothing's up."

"Why are you always hiding from us?"

"Why do you hate me?"

"I don't hate you," she frowned. "I just generally dislike when people needlessly ruin their lives and the lives of my friends."

"Except you pretended to be my friend between the time Kurt took me back and the time we broke up, and in that time I did nothing different. Nothing to change your opinion of me. Nothing bad. I was adoring and caring and sorry for my stupid past mistakes and loyal through it all."

She shrugged. "I had to pick a side. I had to pick my best friend's side."

"So what do you want from me? Should I crawl around on my knees behind you and grovel for the rest of my life for your benefit?"

She smiled again. "That would be nice. Anyway, did you know you missed my and Kurt's separate Broadway debuts during your little hermit escapades, or your midwest adventures with Blam, or whatever?"

Blaine stared at her. "What?"

She nodded. "Yeah. He was the understudy for a little unimportant character, but he got to perform on a _Saturday night_ a few weeks ago, and now the whole city is knocking down his door, trying to get him to audition for everything. We were all there to support him, of course. Except you and Sam. He was amazing."

He didn't know what to say.

"And I'm smart enough to know you don't care about what happened with my Broadway debut, but you should know that everyone was there to support me, too. Except you and Sam. Which brings me to my point. You're living in a big black hole, and you're dragging Sam in with you. And one day, we'll really give up on you. We'll get tired of trying to track you down, and drag you against your will back into our lives over and over again. It's not me who hates you, it's you who hates all of us. And if you hate us so much, and you don't want to be here so badly, why don't you just go and stay gone?"

Now Blaine shrugged. "Fine," he said, and was half a second away from stomping out the door.

But Rachel grabbed his wrist. "Because you don't actually want to go! You want to be here. Your sullenness is all just an act, and I at least can see right through it. You don't really want to lose us forever, so don't let us give up on you."

He bit his bottom lip hard, thinking. "Why didn't anyone tell me Kurt was on Broadway?"

"Because you never talk to us!"

"Because you all think I'm some kind of sex crazed, cheating monster," he said, and his heart broke when it came out, because this was his biggest insecurity. Wondering what everyone thought of him, wondering if they thought the absolute worst of him.

She smiled again, assuming he was joking. "Aren't you?"

He glared at her. That was enough. He headed for the door. He hoped he'd find Sam on the way and bring him with, but Sam was nowhere to be found. Anyway, Blaine didn't want to look around too much, in case he accidentally found Kurt.

He stormed out into the hallway and slammed the door behind him. He rode the elevator angrily, burst out onto the sidewalk in anger, and when he reached the end of the building he almost collided with a couple who turned the corner at an inopportune time. They were laughing together, arm in arm, and smelled of cigarette smoke. Blaine wasn't even going to look at them, or apologize for almost running into them. He only planned to ignore them and internally curse their existence.

But one of them stopped him when he said, "Blaine!" It was Kurt.

When Blaine rather unwillingly turned around he didn't immediately recognize either of them as Kurt, only sure that he'd heard his voice. But after he'd stared at them both for a moment, eyes moving back and forth between them, and squinted in the darkness, did he see that Kurt was the one on the right. He looked so dramatically, sadly different, that Blaine had to focus just on his blue eyes, or else he'd be sure he was responding to a stranger.

"Oh," Blaine said. "Hello."

"Are you just getting here? You're going the wrong way."

"No. I'm leaving."

"Leaving? How long have you even been here?"

Blaine thought about it. "Five minutes?"

Kurt sighed. "Come on, come back in. We'll go with you."

Blaine tried to think of something less insulting to say than what he really wanted to while Kurt and Adam turned and started toward Tina's building's front door again. But he couldn't think of anything else, so he said, mostly under his breath, "I wasn't leaving because I didn't have a chaperone."

"Come on," Kurt insisted ahead of him. "You can't leave without talking to me first."

Of course I can, Blaine thought. What was the purpose of the whole screaming, 'I never want to talk to you again' thing, if he meant 'except in public, at all of Rachel's parties in the future'?

Still, he ended up in the elevator with them, going back up, squeezing himself as far into the opposite corner as he could. What kind of stupid fucking whipped stupid loyal stupid fuck was he? He should have just gone home.

Kurt looked even stranger in the harsh florescent light, so Blaine stared at the toes of his boots while the elevator moved in silence. Eventually Kurt looked at him and said, "Adam is a filthy degenerate smoker."

Still refusing to look at Kurt, Blaine looked at Adam. He shrugged apologetically.

Blaine nodded, said, "Hmm," and looked back at his shoes.

Tina's door swung open again. "IT'S—" she was reading to scream, but then said in a normal tone, "Blaine, Kurt and Adam. That's weird, I'm not going to announce that."

Blaine gave her a grateful look and made a dash back to the kitchen, hoping to put as much space between himself and Kurt and Adam as possible. He found his glass on the counter where he'd left it, hoped no one put anything weird in it, or spit in it, or anything, and poured more liquor into it.

After drinking about half of it in one breath, he turned to see if Kurt and/or Adam had followed him there, but he seemed to be, for all intents and purposes, alone in the kitchen. Well, that would not do.

He cautiously went back into the living room, where all the noise was coming from, to see what kind of new and fresh misery he could subject himself to.

A burst of laughter from somewhere in the back caught his attention. Sam was surrounded there, looking as miserable as Blaine felt. He couldn't make anything out, except for the words, "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go." There was a new burst of laughter after this, and Sam shook his head and rubbed his eyes. Poor Sam. Everyone thinks he's in love with Blaine now. He'd just have to get over it.

"Speaking of Sam," Rachel said, sliding into view again, noticing that Blaine was watching him. "Are you two still living together?"

"We're roommates," Blaine said.

"Still? And working together, too? Do you ever get sick of each other? Is there something else going on? Are we not supposed to think it's weird?"

Blaine nodded. "You're not supposed to think it's weird."

"Everyone's trying to figure you two out. But everyone's too afraid to ask you directly."

"I bet you're not."

"When have I ever been afraid of anything?" she smiled. "Anyway, what's really going on between you? Be honest with me."

"Why?"

Her smile fell. "Why what?"

"Why should I be honest with you?"

"What do you mean?"

"What have you done to deserve my candid honesty?"

She frowned. "This is obviously an admission that you're fucking him."

"Oh, go away."

She did, but she rolled her eyes first.

He went back to the kitchen to refill his glass.

"So, how drunk do you think we should be before we attempt a conversation?" Kurt asked behind him.

Blaine didn't turn around at first. Instead he closed his eyes and imagined, or hoped, or maybe even prayed, that the old Kurt would be standing there, looking as normal, and as innocent and youthful, and as familiar as he used to.

But when he did turn it was the same strange Kurt that had ridden in the elevator with him, that had been out on the street, smoking or not, with Adam, standing before him. He was much thinner than Blaine could remember ever seeing him, which made his cheekbones stick out and his cheeks sink in, but faintly, not grotesquely, at least. And his thinness made him seem even taller than ever, which made Blaine feel even shorter, and less in control of Kurt or their relationship or the situation, but that was nothing new. And Kurt's hair was longer. It fell in locks to the nape of his neck, and was especially long in the front. He had to keep tucking it on one side behind his ear.

Looking at Kurt, Blaine felt an inexplicable urge to go and beat the shit out of Adam. He decided to resist the urge for the present moment, but he might revisit it later. He held up the glass. "This is entirely to prepare for another run in with Rachel."

"Is she why you were trying to leave before?"

"Of course. I can handle anyone else."

"What's so bad about her?"

"Haven't you met her?"

Kurt smiled.

"I could introduce you." He shrugged. "She just loves you, so she therefore has to hate me."

"That's not true." Kurt took the glass out of his hand and set it on the counter. "Let's go find a place to talk."

Blaine followed him. Of course. He would follow him anywhere.


	4. Chapter 4

Rain had been pouring for hours. It'd been coming down for so long that the customers who had just run in to avoid it had all eventually given up and gone back out. But now there was no one left outside to come in. Blaine couldn't remember a time that he'd ever been alone in that coffee shop. It was in the middle of uptown. Then again, the place was never extremely busy. The sign outside was too small and there was a Starbucks two doors down.

Anyway, he was in the middle of sweeping the floor for the third time since the last customer left when the door opened behind him. The bell above it was almost impossible to hear over the roar of the rain.

Blaine turned to find Kurt there, still holding a huge umbrella over his head even though the door had closed behind him.

"Close that up," Blaine said softly, sensing Kurt was upset. "It's bad luck."

"I can't have any worse luck," Kurt answered. His voice was shaking.

Blaine abandoned the broom and went to him. He took the umbrella and closed it, tossing it to the side. Kurt was decently soaked despite it anyway. Blaine wiped the drops on his face with the soft sleeves of his sweater. Kurt put one of his hands on Blaine's mid-wipe, and held it there, closing his eyes for a moment. He sighed. Blaine waited.

"I was thinking so hard about my lines for the audition that I missed my stop, and when I got off to turn around the trains were all delayed, and by the time I got to the right place the audition was over and everyone was gone." He opened his eyes. "I think sometimes I just wasn't meant to do this. Isn't this a sign that I'm on the wrong path, and I shouldn't even try anymore? But what else am I supposed to do?"

"Maybe you just weren't supposed to get that part," Blaine offered.

"But I really wanted that part," he said, and his face crumpled. He hid behind his hands for a moment, trying to hold himself together. "Anyway," he whispered finally. "I decided I needed to do something to cheer myself up, so I bought you something."

"Me?" Blaine laughed sadly. "I think you should have probably gotten something for yourself."

Kurt shook his head and pulled a small shopping bag from his larger, soaking wet satchel bag. Then he frowned, looking up and beyond Blaine's shoulder. "Where is everyone?"

"No one's here. It's raining too much. No one's going outside."

Kurt sighed. "Good. Turn up that sappy singer-songwriter music and…" his eyes fell to the little worn wooden tables in the back. There were always candles on them that no one bothered to light. "Find a lighter."

Blaine did as he was told, and returned to the table Kurt was now sitting at to light the oft-neglected little vanilla soy candle. Kurt listened to the music for a second. It was some young and already too heartbroken boy, playing piano, singing about rain.

"If I had to listen to this every day at work I would kill myself," Kurt said.

"I kind of like it," Blaine shrugged.

"Is this all romantic enough for you?" Kurt asked, putting the shopping bag on the table, gesturing to the candle.

"Very. Even more so because I'm still on the clock."

Kurt smiled. He put a hand into the bag and was just about to pull out its contents when the bell above the front door rang. They turned to see the intruder.

It was Sam. He saw them and froze. "Did I accidentally walk into your apartment?"

"No, this is an actual cafe, open to the public," Blaine assured him.

Sam blinked. "Should I go?"

"Just go to the counter," Kurt said. "He'll be there to take your order in five seconds."

"I'll go stare at the muffins for a while," Sam said, dashing toward the glass case of pastries.

Blaine gave him a thumbs up and turned back to Kurt, who was leaning in closer to him.

"Did you tell anyone yet?" Kurt asked, his voice low.

Blaine shook his head. "No. Did you?"

"No. What if Sam sees it?" He put his left hand flat on the table top, and they both looked at the ring on his finger. It had been there less than twenty four hours. He held his hand out to Blaine. "Quick, take it off while he's not looking."

"No! I'm not taking it off."

"Well _I'm_ not taking it off."

"I think that's the point. You're supposed to leave it on."

"But if Rachel finds out that Sam heard before I told her, she would murder me. Then you'd be engaged to nobody."

Blaine rolled his eyes. "Sam won't notice. And if he does, he won't say anything." Of course, Sam had helped him pick out the ring. And maybe Blaine had texted him some frantic, "Should I do it tonight? I'm going to do it tonight," messages right before he did it. But Sam didn't technically know that he went through with it, yet.

Kurt gave Sam a look, some distracted, exasperated, annoyed look that Blaine caught him giving Sam fairly frequently, but tried to ignore it most of the time. "I guess we have to be quick," Kurt said. He took a ring box out of the shopping bag.

Blaine had seen this coming from miles away, but raised his eyebrows in surprise anyway.

"I know you don't want an engagement ring," Kurt began.

"I never said that."

"You don't want one, but I got you one anyway. I happen to think you should be obviously off the market. And… I want people to know about me when they look at you. That I… have some sort of hold over you. That I left a mark on you. That I got to you first and now no one else can have you. So there. I would like to propose that you'll wear it, even if you think it's ugly or stupid, as a representation that you love me and that you're sorry I had a bad day. And if you really want to marry me, you must know you'll have to go through every tacky tradition, especially if it's fashion related." Kurt opened the box. A ring glinted from it, catching the light of the candle, but Blaine didn't even bother to look at it. He just looked at Kurt. He couldn't help it. He held his hand out, and Kurt slid the ring on his finger.

He was surprised over how intimate the gesture felt. He knew how intimate it felt when he put a ring on Kurt's finger the night before, but, roles being reversed, it was a new kind of intimacy. It felt like making a very serious promise, and knowing he could never take it back. It was very obvious to him suddenly that he'd never known anyone he trusted enough to do what he was letting Kurt do, and all at once he realized that he never would meet someone who could hope to come close. Kurt was it for him. And if that didn't work, then there would be nothing.

Blaine leaned over the table to kiss him, Kurt still holding his left hand. When they parted again they both looked at Sam, who still had his nose to the pastry case.

"Find anything good in there?" Blaine called out to him.

Sam waved them off over his shoulder. "Take your time."

Kurt suggested with a small motion of his head that Blaine should go assist him. Blaine stood, and kissed Kurt's hand chivalrously, before strolling over to the counter. He tried to keep his left hand behind his back.

"Might I suggest seasonal pumpkin?" Blaine asked.

Sam stood up, almost cross eyed from staring at muffins. "I just came to tell you something, actually. You, too, Kurt."

Kurt looked up from his phone, an eyebrow raised suspiciously. "Me?"

"What's up?" Blaine asked.

"In exactly four weeks from today, I'm playing my first solo, headlining show." Sam grinned.

"Wow," Kurt said.

Blaine clapped enthusiastically, and then dropped his hands behind the counter again quickly. "Oh my God. Are you serious?"

Sam nodded.

"This is amazing! Who else knows?"

"No one, I came to tell you first." A pause. He turned to smile at Kurt. "It's just good luck that Kurt's here too. I mean, obviously I'm going to tell everyone. Everyone's invited."

"We'll be there," Blaine assured him.

"I do want a pumpkin muffin, actually," Sam said, eyes drifting to the muffins again. "Anyway, I'll text you all the details later. It's at some hole in the wall place, but it's only like, three blocks from here."

"Awesome," Blaine said, putting Sam's muffin in a brown paper bag.

"So," Sam said while he waited. He looked back at Kurt and then at Blaine again. "Do anything exciting yesterday?"  
Blaine looked at Kurt, who shot him dagger eyes. "No," Blaine said. "Not particularly."

"Oh. It's at eight, I think. My show. Four Fridays from now. But you should come early. I get really nervous before I do open mics, so I'll probably have an aneurism before a solo show. I thought if everyone came a little early, and we all just hung out like it was nothing, I wouldn't freak out as much."

"Of course. We won't be late," Blaine promised.

Sam made his way to the door, already two bites into the muffin. "Don't be late," he reiterated. "No lateness allowed, for any reason whatsoever."


	5. Chapter 5

Kurt was in his lap at Tina's apartment, long hair and cheekbones and everything. There was only one unoccupied chair in the entire place, and Kurt had said, "It's fine, I'll just sit on you."

They tried at first to fit next to each other in the chair politely and cordially, but it wasn't working. So Kurt ended up fully on Blaine's lap, his knees bent close to his chest. And they couldn't help but sling an arm around each other, so Kurt wouldn't fall off. Blaine's arm was around Kurt's waist, but Kurt's arm was around the back of Blaine's shoulders, his hand resting dangerously close to the breast pocket that was hiding his ring. Blaine tried not to think about it.

"Isn't Adam going to be upset that we're canoodling in a chair together?"

Kurt smiled at him. He was close. If they got into a particularly riveting conversation, they'd probably bump noses. "He doesn't care what I do."

Blaine had no idea what that meant. "Too busy being a degenerate, I'd imagine."

"Exactly."

Someone else grabbed Kurt's attention then, and he turned, still holding on to Blaine, to speak to them for a moment. At the same time Sam walked past, behind the chair, and put the bowler hat back on Blaine's head without saying anything. Without even breaking his stride. When Kurt turned back to Blaine, the hat was on his head as though it had simply appeared there, and he laughed.

Blaine shrugged. "Magic."

Kurt turned to see Sam just for a moment before he disappeared into the kitchen, and inferred he had something to do with it. He nodded sagely, but was still smiling. "How are things with Sam, anyway?"

"What things with Sam?" Blaine asked.

"I don't know, life? Work? The band? Roommating, or whatever you're calling it."

"It's genuine roommating, which is not what anyone's calling it, by the way. I'm actually his roommate. That's it."

"Paying half the rent, and everything?"

"Yeah. No. Like, a third of it. Only because I don't actually have a room."

"Ah ha."

"I mean, we're sort of on the look out for a two bedroom, but meanwhile I'm living on a futon. And he's in his room. And that's… two separate rooms. Divided with walls."

"So you live in Sam's living room."

"It's my living room too, I think. He keeps telling me it is, that the whole apartment is half mine. So… eventually, I have to start believing him."

"And the tour went well?"

"Yeah. It was fun. And weird. And even weirder to go back to normal afterwards."

"I saw you in Maryland."

"Um," Blaine said, and then he registered what Kurt actually said. "What?"

"Yeah. Closest show you did to New York. We rented a car."

"You and Adam?"

He nodded.

"Rented a car and drove to Maryland? To see Sam and I?"

"You were good. It was fun."

"And you didn't even talk to me? Us?"

"Well, I would have, but there was a line of middle school girls a mile long waiting to talk to you."

Blaine sighed and frowned. He wondered if Kurt saw the ring in Maryland, if he was close enough to notice it, and then wondered why he was always obsessively thinking about the fucking ring. He sighed. "Why didn't you tell me you were on Broadway?"

Now Kurt frowned. "I only had, like, three hours notice. And you were in… Texas. I think it was Texas. With Sam. I had Finn call you, but you didn't answer. So everyone looked up your tour dates and found out you were in Texas with Sam, and we all gave up."

Blaine didn't know what to say. He felt guilty, like a complete failure. "I'm sorry."

Kurt seemed to shrug it off. "To make it up to you, I'll tell you a secret. I got a real part. Not as an understudy. I signed a contract already, and everything. I mean, it's not a lead role, or anything. But it's something. On real Broadway. And I haven't told anyone yet."

Blaine didn't want to bring Adam up again, but it was too easy to pick at the same old scab. "I wish you'd trust Adam more if you're going to be with him."

Kurt looked down at his hands. "I guess we're in a relationship, a regular one, just like I always wanted. But it's just the shell of one. It's a skeleton. Sometimes, most of the time, I think there's nothing on the inside." He looked up again and tapped Blaine's hat with a finger, setting it at an angle. "I don't know what's up with you and Sam, but when I look at the two of you, and you think I don't see you, what I really see is that you have all the inside of a relationship and none of the outside. And I get really jealous. I wish I had a Sam."

"We're just friends. You have… Rachel?"

Kurt shook his head and looked down again. "You don't even know what you have. I hope you don't take it for granted."

They were quiet for a while. Blaine was thinking about Texas and that coffee shop in the rain.

"I called that night, you know," Kurt said finally. "The night you left. The night I made you leave," he corrected himself. "I called Sam. I wanted to know if you were there. If that was where you went. And if you were okay to stay there. If you were okay, in general."

Blaine stared at him, surprised. "You did?"

"Yeah."

He wondered why Sam would lie to him about it. "What did Sam say?"

Kurt smiled sadly, and thought about it. "Nothing."

"What did he say?" Blaine asked, even more interested now.

Kurt sighed. He was still looking at his hands, picking at his nails. "He said… something that made me very sad. That's all. But he was right, so… I let it go."

Blaine didn't know what to say. He just looked at Kurt for a while, who looked genuinely sad just recalling it to memory. Finally Kurt looked back at him.

"Do you think we'll always be in love?"

A whole novel's length of response went through Blaine's mind at once, but all he said was, "Yes."

"In some way," Kurt stipulated, then. "It doesn't mean we can be together. In a relationship. Whatever that means."

"Does this mean you loved me when you said you didn't?" Blaine asked, realizing while he was saying it that the answer was all he'd wanted to hear for more than a year.

Kurt shrugged. "I just miss you."

Blaine frowned. That was not what he wanted to hear. But he nodded, too. "I miss you, too."

There was a moment of silence. It was too short for Blaine to decide if it was awkward or not. Then Kurt pushed back from him, moving like he was going to stand up. "Maybe I can't sit on you without getting into trouble."

"We're just catching up," Blaine protested, holding onto Kurt's wrist. He didn't want him to go. What if they never saw each other again?

Kurt looked doubtful, but said, "Right."

"Are… you okay?" Blaine asked, not sure how else to put it. "Eating three meals a day, and drinking plenty of water, and everything?"

Kurt gave him a look that said he thought Blaine was strange.

"Vitamins?"

"I'm fine," Kurt said.

"Don't, like, over stress yourself. Don't work too hard."

"I'm fine," he said again. "You okay?"

Blaine nodded. "I'm fine."

Kurt looked like he was going to leave again, so Blaine tried blurting out something else to keep him there a minute longer. "How serious is the whole Adam thing, anyway?"

Kurt looked annoyed, for less than a second, and then seemed to change his mind. He laughed. "Why?"

"I don't know. I just want to know."

"Do you have some kind of dubious plan up your sleeve?"

Not until that moment, no. "I… could, I guess. Do you want me to?" Maybe having something complicated with Kurt would be infinitely better than having nothing with him.

"Do you mean to ask me, if he's fine with me sitting on you in a chair, what else would he be fine with?"

"Actually, I don't care whether or not I have his permission, I just wouldn't want to… um, insult your honor."

Kurt turned to stare blankly into the crowd, as though he was considering it.

"I know how loyal you can be," Blaine added.

Kurt sighed. "Don't you live on a futon in Sam's living room?"

"I could get rid of Sam."

"You mean have him killed?" Kurt smiled at him. "What an awful conversation this has turned into. Couldn't we have just ended it with, 'I miss you'?"

Blaine nodded. "Fine. I miss you, too."

Kurt thought about it again, for a shorter period of time, the second time. Finally he said, "I'd better not, I guess."

"Okay," Blaine said.

"I don't know," Kurt said then. "Give me a minute." He jumped up from Blaine's lap and disappeared into the crowd.

Blaine waited an actual minute, but Kurt didn't come back. So he got up and went in search of Sam.

Sam found him first. He crashed into him, moderately drunk, and pulled on his arm. "How much money do I have to pay you to convince you to leave right now?"

"Do you want to leave right now?" Blaine asked.

"This whole thing is fucking insane. I want to jab my eyes out. It would feel better than being here. Why did we even come?"

"I don't know, it's not so bad for me, right now. Hey…"

Sam was frowning at something over Blaine's shoulder, and looked about to melt into a puddle of angry despair.

Blaine tried to get him to listen. "I have a random question."

Sam blinked back at him. "What?"

"On a scale of one to ten, how pissed would you be if I asked you to… like… not… go home tonight?"

"Not go home," Sam repeated.

Blaine nodded. "Yeah."

"Where am I supposed to go instead?"

"I… didn't really think about that. Suddenly I wish we'd been more diligent about finding a two bedroom apartment, though."

"You want to take someone home, and you want me to not be there?" Sam asked, gleaning the message. "Someone from _here_? Blaine, my apartment is not a free for all… sex… place. Okay, I'm _sorry_!"

Blaine had rolled his eyes and walked down the hallway to get away from him, but Sam followed.

"It's your apartment, too. I'm sorry. But, I mean, what do you want me to do, pay to stay at a hotel?"

"No, I could give you money or something…"

"Then why don't you just go to a hotel?" Sam asked, in a moment of sound logic.

Blaine shook his head. "I don't know."

He realized then that Kurt was waving at him from the other side of the living room. When Blaine saw him, Kurt made a cut throat, shake of the head, 'not gonna happen,' sort of gesture.

"Never mind," Blaine told Sam blandly. "Let's just go."

Sam looked confused. "You sure?"

He nodded. They made their way through throngs of people. Blaine was sure he didn't know 95% of them, and pretty sure he didn't know any of them anymore. Except Sam. Sam Evans, ever the exception. No one paid them any attention at all.

Kurt and Adam were leaning against the wall near Tina's front door. Even Kurt didn't look like he was going to pay any attention to him, but Blaine stopped and stared straight at him. When Kurt looked back, Blaine said, "Goodbye?"

"You're leaving?" he asked, looked at Sam, and sighed. He took Blaine by the arm and led him to the door. "Give us a minute," he instructed.

They went just outside the door, to the privacy of the common hallway of the fifth floor of Tina's apartment building. At least no one else was out there.

"Why are you leaving already?" Kurt asked. The music was still thumping inside. It was still shaking the floor.

"You seem done with me, so…" Blaine said. "Were you actually going to talk to me again? I don't think so. We had our moment."

"But you didn't come here just to see me, did you?"

Blaine weighed the pros and cons of answering truthfully, and decided to hell with it. "Obviously, yes."

Kurt looked down. He looked sad.

"I feel like I checked out of the whole thing five minutes into it, so I might as well stop pretending I actually wanted to see anyone but you. What did the rest of them ever do for me? I mean… recently."

"What did I do for you recently?" Kurt asked. "Besides make you miserable?"

Blaine shook his head. "Don't worry about that."

Kurt looked like he didn't know what to say. He just looked at Blaine, his eyes eventually wandering up to the hat. "So, is that yours or Sam's?"

"It's mine," Blaine said, touching it again. "Sam stole it. Borrowed it. I guess he gave it back."

"I like it," Kurt said. "It looks nice on you."

"Thank you."

Kurt nodded, reached out, and took it. He put it on. "Think I'll keep it," he said, and opened Tina's door again. The whole world seemed to be in there, making noise, trying to be noticed.

Blaine didn't protest. "Let me know when I can come see your show."

"I'll text you," Kurt said.

Blaine bit his tongue and kept himself from saying out loud, "I doubt it."

Sam was standing against the wall next to the door. When Blaine told him they could go, he let out a big puff of air, like he'd been holding his breath the whole time.

Blaine told Kurt one last goodbye, and Kurt waved. Adam was still pretending Blaine wasn't there at all, which was probably for the best. Sam didn't say goodbye to anyone.

When they made it outside again, Blaine and Sam, the air was cool on their faces and the relative quiet was a little unsettling. They didn't say anything to each other for a while, in the same way as the walk there had been.

Eventually Sam broke the silence. "How are you going to get your hat back?"

"Probably not going to. That's okay."

"Are you…" he paused, inordinately long. Obviously he felt he was treading into dangerous water. "Are you going to see him again later?"

"I don't know," Blaine answered. That was all.

Sam changed the subject. "I wanted to, like, run an idea by you, by the way."

Blaine turned to look at him. "What?"

"Well, I just wanted to tell you that I met this girl…"

"At the party?" Blaine asked, taken aback.

"No! On the tour."

"You met a _tour girl_?"

"Yeah, but no. She's not like, a _tour girl_," he mimicked Blaine's disgusted tone. "She was at our show but she's not even a fan, or she wasn't, I mean, she didn't even know who we were. Her friends dragged her there. That makes it different than a _fan_, right?"

Blaine didn't answer.

"Anyway, we've been talking a lot lately. She's really cool. And it's always been her… dream to come to New York."

Blaine rolled his eyes under the guise of turning his head to look at something intangible across the street.

"And I want to help her out."

Blaine tried to keep his voice light and steady. "Did you give her money?"

"No, I just thought she could stay with us for a few weeks, while she gets used to everything and looks for her own place. But I know that might make you feel weird, or whatever. So I was also thinking we, she and I, could split a cheap hotel room for a while instead. I mean, we're both fine with it, and you might like it better. To have the place to yourself for a while."

"I don't really want the place to myself," Blaine said.

"You did five minutes ago," Sam pointed out.

Blaine sighed. "No, it's fine. Don't go to a hotel. You have an apartment for a reason, and you can let whoever you want stay there."

"But it's also yours. It's yours, too." He must have said that a million times.

Blaine shook his head. "It's fine, Tour Girl can come stay with you. Maybe instead I'll finally… you know… get out of there. Then you can have the place to yourself for a while."

Sam didn't say anything.

Blaine elbowed him in the ribs, gently. Tried to smile at him. Light and steady.

"Yeah," was all Sam said. "Okay."

When they got home Blaine pulled at the sofa until it transformed into his bed. Sam went to brush his teeth. They didn't speak. Blaine fluffed his pillows and sat in the middle of the bed, upright, and waited for him.

When he finally emerged from the bathroom, he stopped in the hallway. They just looked at each other, for a while. Maybe Sam wanted to tell him to never mind the whole thing. Blaine wondered if he would. He wondered a lot of things.

"Goodnight," Sam said finally. He went into his room and shut the door.

"Goodnight," Blaine said back. Sam probably didn't hear him. He waited a few more minutes, not moving, just blinking, but nothing happened.

So he turned out the light.


	6. Chapter 6

Texas. Blaine was mostly alone on the tour bus, reading a magazine with his legs curled under him. He wasn't actually alone. Before the tour, the label had paraded a slew of freelance drummers for hire for the band. Apparently the cold, standoffish drummer they'd used for recording the album wasn't available to tour. So they picked Patrick. He seemed reasonably talented, and he had a warm, inviting smile. Unfortunately, they never saw him smile again after the audition. He never talked to anyone. Sam was convinced that in order to learn to play the drums, one must innately be cold and standoffish. He said he'd learn to play the drums himself, so they wouldn't have to hire anyone next time, but then Blaine told him he'd have to become cold and standoffish in return. So Sam gave up on that idea.

Anyway, Blaine had tried countless times to start up a conversation with this Patrick, to no avail. He just mumbled and grunted responses. Blaine didn't exactly want to be on the bus alone with this person, all day, on their day off in Texas, but he also didn't want to go outside and actually do something.

So cold and standoffish Patrick was sitting opposite Blaine, on the facing sofa, with his head down and his mind fixated entirely on his phone. Blaine's was entirely on his magazine. The only noise for a long time was the sound of pages turning. He twisted his ring while he read, and only stopped to turn the pages. And that was why it was so startling when Sam barreled up the stairs, onto the bus, and started throwing open all the cupboards and drawers he could find in their mini kitchen.

Blaine just watched him for a while, while he slammed doors and rushed back and forth, apparently furiously. Sam cursed under his breath sometimes, but otherwise said nothing.

Finally Blaine couldn't stand the suspense. "Problem?" he asked.

Sam flung around to face him, his hair whipping across his forehead, and put his arms out to gesticulate. "_Why_ do we keep the amps in _wooden boxes_?"

"Because they have wheels on them?" Blaine asked. "I thought you went out to explore Austin."

"I just happened to notice they were rearranging shit in the trailer, and I _tried_ to be helpful. I wheeled one damn amp up the ramp and I ended up with this!" He held his hand out.

Blaine looked at it, but saw nothing. No gushing wound, or anything. "Is it invisible?" he whispered.

"It's a sliver!" Sam yelled. "And I need…" he paused.

Blaine waited, raising an eyebrow after a while.

Sam's face went grave, and his eyes seemed to go out of focus, like he could literally see the dread of what he was about to say. "A needle."

"I don't think we have any—" Blaine started to say, on the bus.

But Patrick cut him off. "I have needles."

Blaine had practically forgotten Patrick was even there. He and Sam stared at him. "Well," Blaine said finally. "That's convenient."

He got up and went to his bunk, his head and arms stuck through the curtain, his legs sticking out awkwardly.

Sam shook his head at Blaine. "I don't want his diseased drug needles," he whispered, almost silently. Then, louder, he said, "I don't want any needles. I'm trying to be a bad ass here, but I don't think I can actually pick this sliver out. I'm just going to have to learn how to live with it. For the rest of my life."

"It'll get infected," Blaine said. "Then they'll have to amputate your finger. Or your whole hand. Or your whole arm. Or the… upper left half of your torso."

Sam went pale. "How am I gonna play the show tomorrow?"

"And the day after that, and the day after that?" Blaine asked. "You'll have to get the sliver out."

When Patrick approached them again Sam flinched. "Don't get it near me."

Blaine sighed, and frowned when he did a double take of Patrick. "Is that a sewing kit?"

Patrick held it out, a little plastic box with spools of multi colored thread and a thimble. "It has needles," he said. "I never used it."

Sam looked wearily at it. Blaine nodded, encouragingly, but Sam wouldn't take it from Patrick's outstretched hands. So Blaine sighed and took it. "Come here," he ordered.

Sam sat next to him on the sofa, so close that their legs were touching. Sam was holding his sore hand out like it was a disembodied part of him. Blaine caught it by the wrist, and twined Sam's arm between his own, holding Sam's left hand with both of his.

"I can't do it," Sam said, trying to pull away.

"I haven't even opened the box yet," Blaine pointed out. "Where is it?"

Patrick seemed to be watching them, and at that point frowned, said something that sounded like, 'ew,' and left the bus.

"It's in the tip of my finger," Sam said, wiggling his first finger.

Blaine squinted at it. "That is the least concerning sliver I've ever seen."

"Then we can just leave it in there. My body will reject it eventually…"

"No, I'm digging it out with a needle."

When Sam tried to run away, Blaine gripped him tight and kept him there.

"This is not funny. Why are you laughing?"

"I'm not laughing," Blaine said, and bit his lip, smiling.

"Why do you enjoy my pain?" Sam asked, closing his eyes.

"I enjoy everyone's pain, don't take it personally." He paused when he said it, and wished he hadn't. Or wished it wasn't true. He used to be happy. He used to like making other people happy. He sighed. "I'm sorry. Don't worry, I wouldn't hurt you."

"Okay," Sam said, his eyes still closed. He had his head back, leaning on the back of the sofa, his throat stretched out.

Blaine went to touch the needle to his skin, but stopped. "If you don't want me to, I won't."

"No, you can."

"No, you're right, it'll probably come out by itself in a few days."

"Just do it."

"I don't want to anymore."

"But I want you to."

Blaine frowned and looked at Sam, his eyelashes on his cheeks, his lips in profile, his long neck. He was still holding his hand.

Sam opened his eyes a little bit. "I trust you," he said. "My whole musical life depends on you."

He seemed so sad and sincere. And resigned. Blaine sighed again, and put the needle to his skin. Bit by bit he cautiously picked at top layer of Sam's skin, the part that was already dead and had no feeling. He peeked at Sam for a second once during the procedure. He had his eyes closed again. He seemed to be meditating. He seemed relaxed. When the sliver was free from enough skin for Blaine to pull it out, he did. Sam flinched then, but maybe only out of surprise. He opened one eye.

"Is it over?"

"It's over," Blaine said. He was still holding his hand. "Want to see it?"

"No. I'll die. Just get rid of it."

He would have gotten up and thrown it away, but that would require letting go of his hand, which Sam apparently wasn't interested in doing, so Blaine just reached out and put the needle and the sliver on his magazine on the counter next to him. He'd clean it up later.

"Am I bleeding? I can't look."

Blaine smiled. "No. You're fine."

Sam relaxed a little again, curled his fingers over Blaine's thumb, and turned to look at him. He looked exhausted, like the little operation wore him out completely. "Thank you," he said softly.

"Any time," Blaine replied.

Sam watched him for a while, thinking, blinking slowly, not moving. Blaine said nothing. It seemed like the atmosphere shouldn't be broken. Finally Sam said, "Do you still like me?"

"You're my best friend, I always like you," Blaine said, purposefully avoiding the issue.

"I mean the way you used to." He waited, but Blaine didn't say anything. He just looked down, trying to pick his words carefully. "I mean," Sam continued, "you used to like me a lot, I think. You sang me that song, all sadly, like you got confused and thought I was Kurt, or something."

Blaine gave him a look. "I knew you weren't Kurt. I knew it was you."

"Well, how do you just get rid of that?"

"Get rid of what?"

"That feeling. Feeling like that. Did it just disappear when Kurt took you back, or what?"

Blaine took a deep breath. "No," he said, when he couldn't put it off any longer.

"But you haven't sang to me lately."

"Maybe it's faded, a little bit, from me growing older and jaded and becoming less… spontaneous and randomly overcome with emotion. And from… I don't know, lack of encouragement?"

"So, if I don't like you, you don't like me?"

"No, but I can't publicly announce to you that I love you on a daily basis if you don't want to hear it. Not without making us both uncomfortable. I don't want to shamelessly hit on you until you get so pissed off that you push me away. I know… that I can't have you. I've always known that. And you should know that I value our friendship too much to ruin it for stupid reasons."

Sam was staring into space. "Yeah," he said finally. A pause. "But it's not that stupid."

Blaine squeezed his hand, hoping to cheer him up, or drag him back out of the doldrums he seemed to be in. "Want me to sing to you more often? I will."

"Yeah," Sam said again.

Blaine waited, but he didn't say anything else. They were still holding hands, still sitting close on the sofa, alone on the bus. Finally Blaine laughed. "Are you okay?"

"Why don't you just kiss me?" Sam asked in response.

"Um," Blaine said. "I couldn't. I mean, besides the time we drunkenly made out."

"No, I kissed you, then."

"Oh. So it's my turn?" Blaine asked. "I still couldn't."

"Why not?"

"You have to come to me. That's just how it has to happen. If it's going to happen." He paused. "Which it's not. I think."

"Why?"

"Because I already put myself out there. It's still your turn to… make a move."

"But I can't just kiss you out of nowhere," Sam said.

"Do you even want to?" Blaine asked. "I mean, you don't have to answer that. But it would… help the conversation, or my comprehension of what's going on right now if you did."

Sam twisted to look out the window behind him, gripping Blaine's hand tighter when he did. "Where do you think Patrick went?"

"I don't—" was all Blaine could get out before Sam crashed their lips together. He meant to say 'know,' but he could have said 'care' and been just as honest.

It was around then that he heard his phone ringing from his bunk, and he decided answering it was literally the last thing he wanted to do at the moment.

"Do you know that we're not drunk right now?" Blaine asked when Sam pulled away for just a second.

"Yeah," Sam said, and kissed him again.

Blaine couldn't help but close his eyes and lean into Sam, to get swept away in it because it happened so infrequently and it might never happen again. He wanted to forget about the whole world and everything in it, but remember everything about the kiss at the same time. He realized the day after their drunken make-out that he couldn't remember anything specific about it, apart from that it happened. And he couldn't remember how it made him feel, exactly, except happy, in retrospect, that it happened. He couldn't remember if Sam seemed like he really wanted to be kissing him at all, or if he was kissing him just for something to do.

But this time Blaine was picking out and storing in his memory every tiny thing Sam was doing, to overanalyze later. The way he still gripped Blaine's fingers with his injured hand. The way he used his free hand to move over Blaine's cheek and how he put his fingers in Blaine's hair and pulled him forward, closer into himself. The way he tasted, and smelled, and how soft his skin was. The way he sighed, happily, Blaine thought.

Blaine was halfway on Sam's lap when a loud, sharp, startling noise pulled them apart at a hundred miles an hour. Someone was hitting the side of the bus from outside, directly opposite of where they were sitting.

"Last call!" came the muffled voice of their stupid, terrible, life ruining bus driver. Various crew members were running around wildly out there, throwing bags into the open storage space below, laughing among themselves, not knowing what was happening inside.

The bus driver came up the stairs first, and looked at them. They had slid a couple of feet apart from each other on the sofa. "Oh," he said. "I didn't know you guys were in here already."

Blaine just nodded. Sam said, "Yeah," so quietly he probably couldn't hear it.

A moment later, the dozen or so other people, musicians and managers and everyone the label had sent with them, flowed into the bus and ruined any hope of privacy they might have had, and would have, for the next few weeks. For the rest of the tour. Patrick collapsed onto the opposite sofa again, and pulled out his phone. "Get the sliver out?" he asked after a while.

"Yes," Sam said quickly, unnaturally. "Thank you for the needle."

Patrick nodded.

The bus started up, the engine loudly revving to life. Blaine realized he had his hand against his mouth, without knowing it, like he was trying to hold part of Sam or time against his lips forever. He dropped his hand. Sam looked dazed. "Um," Blaine started.

"I don't know what I'm doing," Sam told him quietly.

"That's okay."

"I don't know how to… I don't know if I even want to… I just don't know."

"You don't have to know," Blaine said.

Sam sighed and rubbed his eyes. "Can we just talk about this later? Like when we get back to New York?"

"Yeah," Blaine nodded, not sure if they ever would.

Sam nodded too, and got up and left, to crawl into his own bunk and close the curtain behind him.

Blaine stared at it for a while until Patrick pulled him out of his thoughts. "Are you married?"

At first Blaine thought he was asking about Sam and himself, and got very confused. "What?"

"Your ring," he pointed at Blaine's hand.

"Oh," was Blaine's answer. He looked at his hand, too.

"I saw you don't wear it on stage," Patrick said. "That's weird."

"Mmm," Blaine said.

"Does your wife know about your thing with Sam?" he asked.

Blaine closed his eyes for a minute. "I have to go," he said, and walked six feet down the hallway to Sam's bunk. He knocked on the artificial, over-polished wood on the side. Sam pulled the curtain open a couple of inches, enough so that Blaine could just see his eyes and the top of his head.

"Are we still friends?" Blaine asked.

"Duh," Sam said. "Your my best friend of all time."

Blaine nodded, and Sam closed the curtain again.


	7. Chapter 7

In the morning Sam got into the futon bed next to Blaine in a series of thuds. Otherwise, Blaine wouldn't have noticed. He had his head under the blankets.

As Sam carefully rearranged himself, Blaine realized that he wasn't just sitting next to him on the bed, he was lying next to him. His heart sped up, but he still didn't pull the blankets down to look at him. He just waited.

Finally, Sam said, "I'm sorry."

Blaine kept his mouth shut. Maybe good things would continue to happen if he just stayed out of it entirely.

"I want you to stay here," Sam said a while later, proving Blaine's theory.

He waited some more.

"Are you awake?"

Blaine rolled his eyes at himself, and emerged, partially, to look at Sam. He wasn't exactly prepared for the sight of him, of how beautiful he would find it: Sam on the pillow next to him. His blonde hair splayed out, his eyes half lidded from recently waking up. And they weren't usually so close. He had to force himself not to stare at his lips and his eyes and his eyelashes and actually speak. "I'm awake. I'm sorry, too."

"There was just a lot happening last night. A lot of stuff that bothered me that I didn't expect would bother me. I was just in a bad mood by the end. And I didn't mean to, like, evict you."

Blaine nodded as well as he could with half of his face on the pillow. "What did you say to Kurt when he called?"

Sam looked confused. "When did he call?"

"The night he kicked me out."

"Oh," Sam said. He looked a little guilty. "I don't remember."

"Just tell me."

Sam shrugged. "It wasn't anything. He asked if you were here."

"And what did you say?"

"I don't know. I said… I don't know. I said it's better that you ended up here than staying with him. Or something."

Blaine smiled. "You made him sad by saying that. He said it depressed him."

"Well, I probably didn't make him sad enough. He deserved it."

The same old loyalty to Kurt, that thing that had stuck in him when he was sixteen and still wouldn't let go, wanted him to protest. To stick up for Kurt. Kurt didn't deserve anything bad. But he knew it was pointless. And maybe Sam was right. He just cleared his throat and said instead, "And you told me he didn't call at all."

"I was embarrassed. I don't know why I said it. It just came out, like it wasn't even me, like it was someone else talking through me."

"So you don't think it's better I ended up here?"

"No, I do. But…" Sam paused. "I mean, I can't stop thinking about all the times you told me you and Kurt were meant to be. That you're soul mates. You said when you were with that other guy that you knew right away that you were really supposed to be with Kurt. And I wonder sometimes if you still believe that."

"I don't, really," Blaine said. "I was just young, and in love, and… And it's hard for me to believe that I'll ever be that happy again, and it's easy to think I was happy entirely because of Kurt, so I thought I needed to do anything to keep him around. But my happiness wasn't entirely because of Kurt. I was happy for a lot of reasons. Having someone to support me, to unconditionally believe in me, who was always there for me, was incredible to me at the time. But as soon as he wasn't always there, I obviously had a complete breakdown. And it was my friends who showed me that I could be happy, even during all that, even without him. You and Tina, especially. You, especially. And when it happened all over again, it was you who made me happy again."

"So," Sam said, "you just want to be happy?"

Blaine laughed, embarrassed for rambling on. "Is it too much to ask?"

"'Cuz," Sam went on, "I have an idea."

"To make me happy?"

"Yeah. You have to do me a favor, though. And maybe it means sacrificing your… comfort and stability, a little bit, but I wanted to ask if you'd do it, for me."

"This is terrifying," Blaine smiled.

Sam didn't smile back. "Will you?"

"Um," Blaine said, thinking about it very quickly, but knew all along that he trusted Sam enough to do anything for him. It was probably the least he could do. "Sure. Yes."

Sam pulled down the blankets Blaine was still wrapped up in enough to reveal his shoulders, then sighed and seemed to give up. "There's like a giant barrier between us. Just give me your hand."

"Do you want me to…" Blaine said, and started kicking the blankets away.

"No," Sam said. "You're fine. Leave them. Just give me your hand."

Maybe it was serendipity that Blaine happened to give him the hand Sam wanted. Maybe Blaine knew, subconsciously, what Sam was about to do.

When Sam took his ring off, Blaine felt the way he'd felt when Kurt put it on, except backwards. At least he didn't feel exactly like he'd broken the promise he'd made, just that he was finally letting it go, without incurring much of a penalty. There was relief and panic at the same time. A weight lifted, and a new worry added. He'd taken it off a million times himself, but he always knew he was going to put it back on as soon as he possibly could. But this time, he thought he might never put it back on again.

Sam got up from the bed and went away with the ring. Down the hall, out of sight somewhere. Blaine put his hands, the left of which felt foreign and strange without the ring, to his face. "Don't throw it away," was all he could say, muffled behind his palms.

"I'm not throwing it away," Sam said. "I'm putting it in a safe, secret place."

"You're not going to tell me where?"

"Nope."

Blaine's breath and hands started shaking at the same time. He tried to calm himself down by pushing on his eyes and cheeks and nose, like pushing himself more firmly into the earth would keep him from exploding.

Sam returned empty-handed. "Are you freaking out?"

"A little," Blaine said, still muffled.

"So, hear me out," Sam said, getting back into bed with him. "Don't I always have good ideas, and give you good advice?"

Blaine couldn't talk.

"Give me your hand again," Sam ordered.

Blaine offered it, stupidly wondering for a second if Sam was just joking and was going to give him the ring back. But he wasn't joking. Sam just held his hand, instead. But differently than he ever had before. He interlaced their fingers. At first, all Blaine could think about was how naked it made his ring finger feel, to feel Sam's skin against his own, without the ring in the way.

"I just want you to try it," Sam said. "Try living without it, for one whole day. If you're really a sobbing mess tomorrow morning, I'll take you to Kurt's myself and try to convince him to take you back, because obviously you can't live without him. But I think you'll be fine. I think you can live without all of it. I even think you'll be happier."

"I don't know," Blaine sighed, and covered his eyes with his free arm. "It's not even about Kurt anymore, exactly. It's just the idea. I don't want to look for someone new. I don't want to get dressed up every Friday night, and get super nervous, and try to impress people enough to give me a chance. I don't feel good enough for other people, and I don't feel like anyone out there is good enough for me either, enough to go through it all again. I don't want to start over, you know? I don't want to give up not being alone. I just want to be connected to someone."

"You're not alone. What do you think we are?" Sam asked and lifted their hands, still clasped together. "We're connected."

Blaine just gave him a sad look, in lieu of telling him, 'I don't think you get it.'

"Some day," Sam went on, "someone is gonna propose to you. Not the other way around. Someone will sweep you off your feet, not the other way around. Someone will surprise you, and tell you they love you and they can't live without you. They'll be the first one to tell you that they promise to spend their whole life trying just to make you happy. You won't have to be nervous about being rejected. You won't have to be sorry for the rest of your life. You won't have to try to make up for stupid mistakes for the rest of your life. You can just… relax. Let someone else do all the work, just to win you, because you deserve it. Some day. I think you deserve everyone who sees you to pledge their whole life to you, and if no one can see how great you are, then the whole world is full of idiots. But I see it."

Blaine's eyes widened farther as Sam went on, in surprise. He certainly wasn't expecting this kind of pep talk after their abysmal night, after Sam practically kicked him out of the apartment and replaced him with a random fan girl. He thought things seemed to be clicking into place, suddenly, but everything was happening too fast for him to make sense of it. Even when Sam paused, and frowned, and looked away, trying to figure out what to say next, Blaine couldn't decipher what was happening. His heart was racing. He felt like he was floating. It was like, he realized, falling in love. More in love than before.

"Look," Sam said finally. "You're… you've got a lot of baggage, man."

Blaine laughed.

"I mean, you're really fucked up. Like, really, _really_ fucked up. You're still healing. And you need to love yourself before you can love anyone else, and all of that. It's probably not the best idea ever to replace one relationship with another. Right?"

"Right."

"So if we're gonna do this…" Sam said.

Now Blaine's eyebrows shot up. "We're doing this?"

Sam ignored the question. "Then we have to take it really, _really_ slow."

Blaine smiled at him. "You have a crush on me."

Sam took a deep breath. "Just like we're doing this really, really slowly, I think I've been falling for you really, really slowly. But now that it's been a few years, I can't really ignore it anymore. And most of all, I want you to be happy. You want to be happy, I want you to be happy too. And even if we do this…"

"We're totally doing this."

"We still have to be best friends. You can't get out of that, like, ever."

Now Blaine couldn't stop smiling at him. "Deal."

"So get out of bed," Sam said, sitting up. "I'm taking you to breakfast."

"I'd much rather we both stay in bed, to be honest."

Sam stood up. "Yeah. That's gonna require a whole other, sappy, embarrassing conversation that I am definitely not having until the sun goes down, at least. This one was enough for now."

"If you insist," Blaine said. But he still didn't get up. His limbs felt heavy. Or invisible and weightless. He wasn't sure which one. He just felt like he was buzzing all over.

"So, is this gonna be our first date, or what?" Sam asked.

"If it is, then I have to take a shower first."

"Go take a shower. Get ready. But don't be nervous. You can leave all the being nervous to me. I'm the one who has to go on a date with a dude." He made a fake grossed out face.

Blaine sat up on his knees first, and dragged himself out of bed slowly. "If you get nervous because of me I'm going to punch you in the face."

Sam flipped him off, but they smiled at each other until Blaine made it into the bathroom. He even walked backwards part of the way, because he couldn't really take his eyes off Sam until it was necessary to shut the door. And when he did, he decided this was definitely true love.

He opened the door again, a crack. "You have a crush on me!"

"Shut up!" Sam yelled from his room.

"Oh my god, I've been waiting for this retaliation for years. I'm gonna tell the waitress you want to do me."

"_SHUT UP!_"


End file.
